-grid had set a pattern
of hunger, so that the silence and the dark buildings did not seem a
sign of tranquility and sleep, but of exhaustion and despair. The
highway lamps were few, by comparison with other inhabited worlds, and
the ground-car needed lights of its own to guide its driver over a paved
surface that needed repair. By those moving lights other depressing
things could be seen. Untidiness. Buildings not kept up to perfection.
Evidences of apathy. The road hadn't been cleaned lately. There was
litter here and there.

Even the fact that there were no stars added to the feeling of
wretchedness and gloom and--ultimately--of hunger.

Maril spoke nervously to the driver.

"The famine isn't any better?"

He moved his head in negation, but did not speak.

"I left--two years ago," said Maril. "It was just beginning then.
Rationing hadn't started then--."

The driver said evenly;

"There's rationing now!"

* * * * *

The car went on and on. A vast open space appeared ahead. Lights about
its perimeter seemed few and pale.

"E-everything seems--worse. Even the lights."

"Using all the power," said the driver, "to warm up ground to grow crops
where it ought to be winter. Not doing too well, either."

Calhoun knew, somehow, that Maril moistened her lips.

"I--was sent," she explained to the driver, "to go ashore on Trent and
then make my way to Weald. I--mailed reports of what I found out back to
Trent. Somebody got them back to here whenever--it was possible."

The driver said;

"Everybody knows the man on Trent disappeared. Maybe he got caught,
maybe somebody saw him without makeup. Or maybe he just quit being one
of us. What's the difference? No use!"

Calhoun found himself wincing a little. The driver was not angry. He was
hopeless. But men should not despair. They shouldn't accept hostility
from those about them as a device of fate for their destruction. They
shouldn't ...

Maril said quickly to him;

"You understand? Dara's a heavy-metals planet. There aren't many light
elements in our soil. Potassium is scarce. So our ground isn't very
fertile. Before the Plague we traded heavy metals and manufactures for
imports of food and potash. But since the Plague we've had no off-planet
commerce. We've been--quarantined."

"I gathered as much," said Calhoun. "It was up to Med Service to see
that that didn't happen. It's up to Med Service now to see that it
stops."

"